Ex-wife coughs up in Ecclestone divorce
FOR MOST billionaires, the greatest fear in getting married is what the divorce might cost. Not so Bernie Ecclestone. Official court papers show the Formula 1 tycoon is, as a result of his split from his second wife, Slavica, perhaps the world’s best kept man.
Documents show that since his divorce in 2009 he has received half a billion dollars (R5.35-billion) from his ex-wife’s trust fund. In a highly unusual divorce settlement, rather than Ecclestone paying Slavica Ecclestone a good chunk of his fortune, she appears to be paying him at the rate of $100-million a year.
The details of the divorce settlement are disclosed in a 256-page indictment, laid before a German court last week. Ecclestone is currently on trial in Munich, where he is accused of paying a bribe of more than £25-million (R450- million) to a German banker.
Ecclestone, 83, was married to Slavica, his second wife — 28 years his junior — for 24 years until their divorce in 2009, and it had widely been assumed that she was in receipt of the biggest divorce settlement in history, in excess of a billion dollars. The truth, as with much of Ecclestone’s affairs, is more complex. According to the indictment, the details of the divorce settlement were given to the German prosecutors in testimony from Frédérique Flournoy, a director of the Ecclestones’ Bambino trust.
The family trust is based in Liechtenstein and its beneficiaries are Ecclestone’s ex-wife and their two daughters, Tamara and Petra. It was set up in 1997 and is thought to be worth more than £2.4-billion (R43-billion).
Ecclestone’s assets were trans- ferred into his wife’s name in the 1990s at a time when he faced heart problems. Slavica had not lived in the UK long enough to be domiciled for tax purposes and, had he died, she would have had to pay 40% inheritance tax on money received from him. Normally, spouses are exempt from this.
To prevent his estate from being taxed, Ecclestone transferred his most valuable assets, his shares in F1’s parent company, to a Jersey-based business called Petara, ultimately owned by his ex-wife. She then put the shares in the Bambino trust, meaning no tax has been paid on the money raised by the 2006 sale of F1 to a private equity firm. The catch is that, as a UK resident, Ecclestone is not allowed control over the trust. This led to the unusual divorce settlement. —© The Sunday Telegraph, London